Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of combining an additional print image such as a page number, a date, a text string, or the like to an original image and printing a resultant composite image on paper, and a method and a program of controlling an image forming apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
When a copy of an original is generated using an image forming apparatus, it is known to use a composite print function to combine a print image to be added, such as a page number, a date, a stamp, a woven pattern, or the like, to an original image and print a resultant composite image on paper (Japanese Patent Publication No. 2859208). It is also known to configure an image forming apparatus to have a function of performing user authentication using a user authentication technique when the image forming apparatus is started by a user, and provide customization in terms of, for example, a display language depending on the user.
The composite print function is a function of combining an additional print image such as a page number, a date, the number of copies, an arbitrary text string, or the like with an original image. Combining of an additional print image is performed when printing is performed such that a resultant composite image is generated by combining the additional print image with an original image and the resultant composite image is printed.
When a user wants to add a print image, the user may select desired one of composite print functions respectively corresponding to a page number, a date, and the like and may perform printing using the selected composite print function.
For example, to add a page number, a page print function is selected and then a desired template is selected from available page print templates such as only a page number, a page number put between hyphens, a page number with a chapter number, a page number with a total page number, and the like.
To add an arbitrary text string, a character print function is selected and the arbitrary text string to be added is input. Note that a plurality of composite print functions may be selected and enabled at the same time. For example, the page print function and the date print function may be selected and both may be enabled.
After the composite print function is set, if a print job such as a copy job, a print job, or the like is executed, a specified additional print image is combined with an original according to the selected composite print template. In this process, characters to be added are formed using the same character font as that used in a display language selected by a job execution user thereby generating a text string image to be added. The process of generating a text string image using a font is referred to as a font extension.
For example, in a case where when a job is executed in a situation in which “English” is specified as the display language, the font extension is performed using, for example, a Courier font used in “English”. Similarly, in a case where the display language is “Japanese”, the font extension is performed using, for example, a Mincho font used in “Japanese”.
However, when “English” is used as the display language when a job is executed, it is not capable of forming “Japanese” characters using the Courier font used in the “English” display language, and thus the font extension is impossible for the given Japanese characters. That is, when the font extension using a font used in the display language is tried on an arbitrary text string, there is a possibility that a text string image is not generated correctly.